Building Office

Dubai Creek Harbour Mosque

Team: Aras Burak

Project Date: 2018

Competition Entry: Emaar Iconic Mosque Competition

In order to meet the capacity of the mosque asked in the brief, we maximized the footprint of the building to provide full use of site and rotated only the facade of the building towards Mecca instead of the building itself. By doing this, we have realised the building itself had an ornament value as a whole. Instead of introducing a separate minaret and dome, we have aimed to morph the whole building into one single object while keeping the spatial qualities and silhouette of a traditional mosque.

Durham Hub

Team: Aras Burak, İdil Kantarcı, Jale Sarı

Project Date: 2017

Competition Entry: Design Leadership Council, Perkins+Will

BUA: 45,000m2

Education is not only about gathering knowledge. It is also about developing awareness for social justice by setting up a base for dialogue between people with different social background, experience and values in life. Durham is a city of education, the site is placed between the three major research universities; Duke University, NC State University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where a young, vibrant community exist.

The driving force of the project is to create a model for the new developments in the American cities with an efficient land use by promoting density, with indeterminate space frame, allowing future change take place easily within. The design is a city square with a third dimension. The city building – the urban room is a mix-use building catered for millennials. Through robust programmable public space and ambitious educational & partnership initiatives, the institution becomes an active participant in the region – attracting wider interest for its iconic urban interior. Building also accommodates some program of the Research Triangle Park.

A semi-outdoor urban room is created by folding up the typical building stock of in the city by literally copying the ratios of an already functioning police station on site as the first base unit for the development. In summer, south facing aperture fills the void with natural light and for the darker winter days, the illuminated zone becomes an inviting figure in the cityscape attracting the flow of people from city.

Live-work and the co-working spaces face inwards and the living spaces face outside while the top and bottom serve as shared spaces functioning as lobby, multipurpose space, exhibition hall. Supermarket at the ground floor assures the activation while a library, public pool, gym, retail and f&b attract public on the top as anchors that will become destination for not only the occupants of the building but the Durham citizens as well where they can enjoy 360 degree Durham view.

Using prefabricated construction methodologies and applications to build Urban Room allows the designers to integrate new innovations and technologies to the design in different locations. The essential benefit of using prefabricated design in Durham is to reduce potential ecological impacts on the site. Choosing an offsite construction technique helps creating a seamless transition from designing and manufacturing in controlled environments to the site for a quick assembly. This controlled environments provides an optimum storage for local materials to be stored, used and get recycled.

Bandirma Park

Building Office: Aras Burak

Local Architect: Elif Demir

Date: 2017

Type: Competition

Location: Balıkesir / Turkey

Bandirma Park will become an iconic developmentthat accommodates design students, professionals and host temporary pavilions, sponsored events. The masterplan is at the same time aiming to create a weekend destination for the city to socialize.

As you approach using the ferry from İstanbul to Bandırma, you will start seeing the tip of the convention hall. And as you get closer, on the top of this beautiful hill you will see the silhouette of all of the buildings. We have aimed to create this unique experience through architecture by maximizing the negative space in the buildings that will not count as part of floor area. While we do this, each building started have its own courtyard, its own atrium that becomes a pocket in the park experience – almost like a cave. The iconic character of the buildings is to an extreme extend that 5 star hotel is hosted within a pentagon shaped plan and the four star hotel is located within a rectangular plan.

We were astonished by the beauty of the existing landscape so we wanted to keep our interference to minimum. Apart for a network of walkways to ensure the park is secure and easy to navigate through, the landscape is proposed to remain untouched. On further stages of the project, the ruins of the military buildings can be carefully cleaned up and these spaces can become outdoor cafes, pop up stores. The ruins would be developed by the designers that occupy the buildings following a competition phase every year. Which will allow us to have a richer spatial experience within the park, not dictated by one group of designers only.

To keep our interference with the preserved zone to minimum, we proposed a local market like tent built on cables that run from the centre of the park to each building within the masterplan, for semi-shaded space above the exposed ruins. The edges of the site is occupied with the buildings forming a circular path around the hill which can potentially turn into a full circle development in the future allowing the ring road to meet Marmara Sea. All back of house and vehicular access is located at the close proximity to the existing road and the central part of the park is reserved for pedestrians.

The retail space is proposed to have three types. First being the permanent retail space below the 5 star hotel, second as the spilling out towards the central – transitional kiosks in the park and the third as the temporary cafes, pop-up shops within the listed buildings. The mall is located under the five star hotel and is a semi-indoor space opening towards the centre of the park like a castle bridge.

Bandirma Park has the flexibility to expand, by adding in-between structures in the near future because of the necklace like arrangement of buildings around the central point of the park.

Kirsehir Planetarium

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Local Architect: Elif Demir

Date: 2016

Type: Competition

Location: Kırşehir / Turkey

Ground floor journey

The internal organization and the look of the Cacebey Medresesi in Kirsehir was the nucleus for the design of our Planetarium project. Cacabey is made out of different components expressed on the exterior, forming one single building. These components are taken to the new site and are re-defined programmatically as the entrance, ticket hall, observation hall, projection room and the library for the planetarium. They are spread within a sequence on the given site with no sense of directionality or given overall form to the building. The only defining principle of the sequence was where the journey starts and ends.

The center points of the components are connected with sheer walls creating a necklace which define and frame the interior for the ground level – not letting the daylight in at all. The second floor sits above all, like an egg-tray fixing the components into their position, acting as the roof terrace for the building. All the program requiring daylight is located at the second level.

Ground floor and the landscape

The roof terrace (third level) is planned as a 24/7 observation deck for the public use in the form of a amphitheater, as a semi-public space – which has its own spiral staircase letting public skip the ground floor and access the roof immediately anytime of the day. Walls frame the terrace intentionally letting only the observation of the sky.

Basement, Second Floor, First Floor and the Terrace

Second Floor plan

The facade is made by a single translucent component that repeats in two directions via operation of flipping, wrapping the entire second floor. This translucent component would allow daylight to diffuse into the classrooms and offices at the second floor. It would also allow the components forming the building to be expressed on the facade by their shadows. The inhabitable, deep steel frame forms the structure of this level.

The vast landscape against the tiny building given in the brief forced us to think about the landscape as a topographical element that stretches between the edge of the building and the edge of the site. We did not want to ruin this landscape with a car park at the ground level therefore the fabric like landscape bulges at the entrance of the underground car park. This hill like situation allows public to experience the building in different perspectives including the view that hints the presence of a secret public space, the terrace above the building.

Kirsehir Planetarium, with its ripples of landscape as echoes of its building boundary is designed to be a brand new public space that connects the new mosque with the new cultural center and the rest of the city as a cultural public plaza for Kırşehir.

Spanscraper

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2016

Type: Competition

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

Spanscraper connects Europe to Asia.

The highest value of the land in Istanbul is right next to the Bosphorus. Therefore Spanscraper responds to the demand by its 220m height and 2km span as a new skyscraper typology.

Instead of proposing an isolated luxurious residential, leisure programmed building as a skyscraper, we are interested in creating an urban structure that spans between the Europe and Asia. The Spanscraper acts as a transportation hub for Istanbul, right next to the existing Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in Istanbul connecting Beykoz to Hisarustu district.

City’s need for the new bridge is the main driving force behind the idea of the Spanscraper. Instead of building a new bridge in north where the last truly green zone of Istanbul is – which is the current proposal under construction as we are submitting this project – we propose to use the urban fabric we already have in a denser way using a site right next to the existing bridge by choosing a site near the existing Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge (Commonly referred as the 2nd Bridge).

The Spanscraper hosts two ferry terminals at the two ends of the building where the footprint corresponds with the water and two levels of highway bridge in two opposite directions, a train station level and an airport at 220m height. Six elevator shafts uninterruptedly runs between the ferry terminal, the bus stop, train station and the airport in different levels.

Form of the tower starts from the narrow edge and gets wider to the top of the building where the runway for the airport is located. The front of the building is flat as the face of the building towards the historical city. The decision of the front vs. back face is intentional for marking the end of the urban fabric in the form of a wall for Istanbul via Spanscraper. The front face also acts as an information screen for the city where announcements can be made and mourning, celebrations can be projected. The thin bottom edge of the tower creates a pleasing vista for the bank of the Bosphorus when one looks up despite the incredible density building hosts.

The division under the driveway is reserved for the leisure purpose, the other layer between driveway and the train station is dedicated to the residential and the final chunk of building between the railway and the airport is reserved for the wider floorplates like the offices and the indoor entertainment, cultural / shared activities of the city.

The modern Istanbul has been in two parts for more than a century. The dense inhabitation of the spanning structure between Europe and Asia will mean a true connection between the Europe and Asia for the first time and making this connection as dense as possible in the form of the skyscraper will result as the invention of a new typology.

The main artery of the city spanning between two continents would become a valuable piece of infrastructure, the building would act as a city and this is the direction we should be pushing skyscrapers towards for the future.

Lamerwood House

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2015

Type: Competition

Location: Hertfordshire / UK

The brief asked the competitors to rethink what a beautiful house is. We were not interested in designing a precious and pretty object. Therefore we only focussed on forming a machine that is built around the very interesting brief provided by the client. The building is shaped around the elevating platform – taken as a gravitational point for the program of the building. Rooms are in equal distance to the moving platform that connects every floor of the building and even extends out as a watch tower allowing the violation of height restriction seamlessly. Mancave of the owner has it’s own entrance and is not buried underground. Instead, mancave wraps around the house defining its boundary.

Obama Center

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2015

Type: Competition (1st Prize)

Location: Chicago, IL / USA

Obama Presidential Library is proposed as an iconic building on the edge of Chicago loop. Unlike the other Presidential Libraries of the past, Obama Library is designed to be more than a mausoleum or vault-like building.

A public element, “The Bridge of Hope” connects three river banks and is located at the ground level, running through a bowl shaped amphitheater forming the lower section of the sphere. It was designed for discussions and allowing for unexpected participation, as well as for potentially uncomfortable moments with no barriers of solid walls or glass as a demonstration of true democracy.
Spaces with higher security requirement are stacked on top of this amphitheater level in 8 levels which imitate the bridge in their form, which host the records and the galleries for the 8 years of Obama presidency, opening up to the city on each end, providing pleasant views.

The shield like facade is a translucent surface which allows the limits of the sphere to blend with the sky, making the sphere feel like a soft object on the edge of Chicago loop.

Guggenheim Helsinki

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2014

Type: Competition

Location: Helsinki / Finland

Proposal is located next to an international port terminal, the idea I followed was to treat the site as an incomplete canvas.

Only the completion of the museum was not to be left literally to the artists, the museum is to be a frame for the artwork, that could be either modified or left just as is functioning too. So the proposal is complete when it is delivered.

Four large galleries are connected by the building independent from the ground level, the loop accommodate the cafe and restaurants and the linear galleries too.

The entrances to the four main galleries are only through the bridges as the artwork can enter the museum through the ground level, which is already used as a truck passage for the Helsinki port.

The proposal accepts the environment of the site as it is and provides it’s own art courtyards, facing inwards, only opening to the harbour and the park next to the museum site.

Hacienda Hills

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2014

Type: Private Commission

Location: Los Angeles, CA / USA

Four approaches for the strong topographical character of the site. From left to right:

Sunken

Sunken with Scoring

Wrapping

Soil Lock

Scoring

Scoring idea transformed into bars of programme stretched between elevator and stair shafts.

Los Angeles Office

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2013

Type: Private Commission

Location: Los Angeles, CA / USA

Architecture office located on Jefferson Blvd. Los Angeles. Building contains two atriums, one for confidential use, the other for public / display for guests. The office is designed as a 24 hours working space, with high ceilings and warehouse like spatial quality. Its large scale is unusual for its category however the workspace is extremely flexible.

La Primavera

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2013

Type: Private Commission

Location: Los Angeles / CA, United States

Organised in an exploded order, the beach house offers an incomplete interior for its users unlike an enclosed envelope does. The shifted rooms offer views to the ocean and openings for circulation through different levels of the house.

Single family residence in Venice, California. Exploded organisation of blocks formnegative space that is used for circulation, daylight. Basement is a desired destination, a separate entitiy instead of an extra space for no specific use / storage. Architecture can be more interesting than the beach view.

Galataport

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2013

Type: Private Commision

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

The proposal for the new development of the international cruise terminal after privatisation of the existing buildings. The reclaimed concrete foundations are reported to be hopeless and the tear down of the existing foundation is suggested by the engineers for the site of new Galataport. We chose not to propose a whole concrete base covering the whole site. Instead, we preferred to keep the already built edge, forming ice cubes that would float in Bosphorus, hosting different uses. The ground level would act as bridges connecting each building to the land.

AKM

Atatürk Kültür Merkezi (AKM) design is based on a maze in plan. Building starts as a walkway and as you move down, towards the main stage, the walkway transforms into the ceiling.

Pfizer Headquarters

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2013 – ongoing

Type: Private Commission

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

Pfizer Modern Art

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2013 – ongoing

Type: Private Commision

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

Dogus Tower

Team: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Date: 2012

Type: Private Commission

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

Office tower designed as merging volumes, leaning towards the Nisbetiye Caddesi. Building is designed as a media headquarter in a vertical arrangement.

Kadigil Theatre

Team: Aras Burak

Date: 2012

Type: Private Commission

Client: Saliha Sera Kadigil

Location: Istanbul / Turkey

Camlica Mosque

Team: Aras Burak, Elif Demir

Date: 2012

Type: Competition

The design of a mosque has always been a hot topic for discussion in Turkey. The arguments in terms of style are always trapped between the traditional vs. modern choice.

Our interest was to propose only a great space with no tricks of numbers, secret meanings, mystical decisions.

The greatest dome that can ever be imagined is the sky. Therefore we did not propose a new dome, instead: we proposed a window to the sky.

The site was lacking a urban context that can help us direct the building’s design. Instead of seeing our proposal as an urban structure, we were not ashamed to define it as a sculpture + mosque on Camlica Hill of Istanbul.

The semi-open dome is located between the open courtyard and the indoor space for prayers. This semi-open dome frames the sky with five openings. Funeral ceremonies are to take place here.

In plan, the building is divided into four parts, one semi-open dome, one open courtyard, one indoor space for prayers and the last one as a social, secular space for conferences, activities.

These four sections are surrounded by the honeycomb shaped units where hallways, staircases and lifts are also located. This frame also incorporates the classrooms into the design.

Roof has a 100mm deep decorative pool to prevent access to the minaret and the semi-open dome’s sculptural part.

The dome that is facing inwards is an outdoor amphi-theatre. Also for tourists, it could’ve been an ideal location to witness the time of praying. We tried to keep this quarter of the building’s accesses and programme separate from the rest of the building.

Time Warner & Dogan

-1, +1 project is a search for an architecture for migrant corporations. migrant corporations are constantly on the move in cities like Istanbul, especially when unstable economic and political conditions are present. as they are on the move media corporations stay anonymous in the city requiring buildings underground, insignificant large boxes.

Since Galatasaray’s stadium is demolished this year in Istanbul and left a 250 x 250m hole right in the middle of the highly congested city centre, we bring together 10 media groups that are in joint venture at international and national scale: sharing the -1 infrastructure (TV and Film production spaces) +1, more arbitrary configured office spaces sit above the -1 level, letting the sandwiched completely free public space for the city, right next to the main highway connected Europe to Asia where 4 million people pass by in a normal day. corporations can build in our cities such public spaces, in this case such a park type that can not be afforded by the political power in the city.

Seba Stadium

Relocating the home of Beşiktaş JK to Okmeydanı replacing – merging with the Perpa trade center. The perimeter of the building is assigned to be the trade center while the stadium functions twice a month as the home of Beşiktaş JK Football and Basketball teams.

Dentapoli

Design: Aras Burak

Dental practice in a not so trendy district of Istanbul. Building is divided into half vertically. One route is designed for the use of doctors, the backstage. the second route is for the patients. Dental phobia is to be distracted by a playful attitude on the patients’ side while the doctor’s experience is designed to be efficient and help reducing the stress level by private spaces to take break, enjoy the work day.

Mont Beauvais

Nimbus Masterplan

Nimbus Masterplan is about forming a compact business district at the heart of Sisli district just like a rain cloud.

The cores are exposed at the first 10 levels of the skyscrapers, at the level of each 50 meters, the skyscrapers are connected to each other forming new ground levels.

It would be possible to drive up to the skyscrapers to park at 100m height and invert the circulation vertically. In such a “car city” like Istanbul this would be interesting.

The district is a delta formed within the main road, Buyukdere Caddesi in Istanbul, Zincirlikuyu.

Casa a Napoli

House in Naples, Italy. Merging volumes forming a very small house.

Mahalle Horizontal

The second phase is the vertical configuration, imagining the Mahalle concept on a horizontal plane, a grid. Circulation does not depend on a core, instead openings start to serve as gateways to each grid. The hill condition of the site allows vistas towards the historical Istanbul views. The roof serves as main street and balconies for apartments.

Mahalle Vertical

The semi-public sphere between a dwelling and the city in Turkish culture.

Social Manifesto

Our design aims to offer the mahalle life in a skyscraper.

In order to achieve the mahalle quality, we need single, two, five stories high ceiling spaces and street like circulation that allows by-passing certain parts of the building in the sky.

The spaces we are proposing are indeterminate. Our job is to offer the great spaces with no imposed carefully scripted occupation of it.

The potential for such spaces in vertical is going to inspire, result in the celebration of high rise again in 21st century.

High-rise Manifesto

Complex Floor Plan Repetition

The tower is shaped by bundled floor plan repetition. The generic skyscraper is a repetition of a single floor plan. We believe there is an opportunity to expect more from a high riseby making thus repetition complex.

In Mahalle, five floor-plates form a single bundle and this group gets repeated by rotation by 90 degrees around the elevator shafts each time.

Multiple Ground Levels

Ground level in a skyscraper is taken for granted as flat. Cities like Tokyo, Istanbul, Lisbon, San Francisco are not flat. We are struggling to adapt the New York skyscraper to the cities with strong topographic character. Despite this feels like a disadvantage, the topography can let us have more than one ground levels. In the case of Mahalle tower, the tower connects Golden Horn with Okmeydani district, creating 7 different ground plates.

Floor Elimination

In Shibuya – Tokyo, department stores bridge between buildings, each building is a shared indeterminate frame. This condition creates a democratic use of the high rise. One store can close earlier than the other and the building can still be open to public by a more complex circulation system.

Walkways and staircases wrap, are placed around department stores allowing floor elimination. Mahalle takes this a precedent. One could skip any compartment using the escalator or lift only.

Urban Room

A hotel for frequent travellers, the public cube and the London Underground Station, Tower Hill is merged together. We have experienced the public square for centuries, how about experiencing the public cube? Is there any way of designing an urban room that will become a free space any time of the day to hang around safely.

We define the busy mornings and evenings of the station as urban tide . The term is coined for defining the exact moments in a typical London work day, where the building meets with masses. During the night time and afternoons the tide disappears allowing slower paced programmes to take place on site.

We have proposed shortcuts, backstage conditions for the hotel workers within the public cube. The precedents are taken from our visits with AA from Tokyo’s Shibuya Square.

Yalikavak House

Al Faisaliah II

Phase 1 / Project led by Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf

Phase 2 / Partner in Charge: Aras Burak

What could be the next step for the designers of the CCTV to push the limits of the skyscraper design. Only when the client gives no budget limit and no height restrictions, it is possible to imagine a new loop skyscraper. The proposal is located right next to the Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The loop tower would connect the Foster’s mall with the Tange’s office building in Riyadh. The building is twisted joining in the middle of the whole height, allowing two meeting points to happen in a single skyscraper instead of one connecting bridge, like CCTV.

Zorlu Center

Partners in Charge: Aras Burak, Aris Kozmidis

Project Date: 2007 – 2015

An ambitious client, Nazif Zorlu wanted to create an iconic building in Istanbul and is aware of the power of architecture for adding value to his real estate investments. He opened a semi-international competition for the shopping mall, hotel and residence in Istanbul. The site is a very busy junction for modern Istanbul, Sisli. We have proposed four towers that merge and get separated again from the centre point of the tower.

Shopping mall, hotel, residential and office building on a highly valued site in Istanbul. Client, Ahmet Nazif Zorlu, a wealthy businessman from Denizli, had a desire to build an iconic building that can become an architectural masterpiece for Istanbul. As a young practice, we are not interested in the value of the building that is calculated by square meters.

We believe smaller spaces with great architectural value are worth to invest, not the square meters. The site is highly congested. It is right next to the major transportation hub of the metropolis, Zincirlikuyu. There is a beautiful modern building, one of the first skyscrapers of the city, Karayolları Headquarters by Mehmet Konuralp right at the north east corner of the new building.

We wanted our design to be in a relationship with this tower. Having a corridor for view towards this building from the other side of the site was the design decision to keep in mind for us.

Book

Every project has an individual book containing essays, drawings and visualizations in progress. Our bookstore is BoOK under Reading Office, you can make purchases for the actual project books using our partner website. readingoffice.com/book

Jobs

We are motivated to form a strong design team. If you believe you will fit in our work environment and you are up for sharing the challenge to inspire and question our profession, contact us. Currently we are not hiring. Please send your applications as a PDF file (not larger than 10MB) to HR@buildingoffice.net we will contact you when we need a new team member.